Greetings! I would like to introduce myself as the new List Administrator for the Des Moines County, IA mailing list. I have been researching in the county for about 8 months so I'm sure there are a few things some of you could tell ME about Des Moines County. My ggg-grandfather, Joachim Christian Drebenstedt (b 1824-d.1894), immigrated to Benton township from Prussia/Germany with his wife and 4 children. Most of the families that his children and grandchildren married into were settled in Des Moines Co. and many of his decsendants pretty much stayed in the area and live there still. I was born about 10 miles from his farm. Anyway, I'm digging in and will probably be here for awhile! We have about 61 subscribers to the list and I'll do my best to recruit however I can. The more people we can get on the list the greater our chances of running into a cousin. Here are my surname interests in Des Moines Co: Drebenstedt Groehe Koenig Eckermann Dravis/Drevis Young Boesch McVey Stolba Cummings Thye Pritchett Kindig Rice Thie Cramer Lucas Bischoff Kent Grone Frank I'll pass on helpfull genealogy hints/resources that I run into with my own research and try to help anyone I can. I urge you all to do the same. Now let's go out there and find our ancestors! Sincerely, Tina Tina@trancorpinc.com